issue no. 06 NOV 2013

ART . CULTURE . ANTIQUITIES . NATURAL HISTORY CONTENTS UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS

O1 OUR SECOND NATURE: 18 THE LEGO ACROPOLIS Comprising the Macleay Museum, Nicholson Museum JEFFREY SMART’S OEUVRE 20 USU ART EXHIBITION: BEING. and University Art Gallery 05 PACIFIC SOLUTIONS 22 ZORA’S UNLIKELY INSPIRATION Open Monday to Friday, 10am to 4.30pm and the first Saturday of 08 INTO THE LIGHT: THE ORIGIN 24 SONIA KURARRA every month 12 to 4pm OF AN ANCIENT MODEL Closed on public holidays. 26 TOM BASS’S THE STUDENT General admission is free. 10 NOSTALGIA: AN AUSTRALIAN AND OTHER SCULPTURES Become a fan on Facebook and AESTHETIC follow us on Twitter. 28 OUT AND ABOUT 13 PRECISION (SLIDE) RULES! Sydney University Museums 30 WHAT’S ON Administration 14 TWEETING FOR T +61 2 9351 2274 32 OUR MERCHANDISE AT F +61 2 9351 2881 #COLLECTIONFISHING E [email protected] THE MUSEUM SHOP 16 TREASURE AMIDST THE DUST Education and Public Programs To book a school excursion, an 17 LEGO AND MUSEUMS: adult education tour or a University GREAT COMPANIONS heritage tour T +61 2 9351 8746 E [email protected]

MACLEAY MUSEUM Macleay Building, Gosper Lane (off Science Road) T +61 2 9036 5253 F +61 2 9351 5646 E [email protected] CELEBRATING NICHOLSON MUSEUM In the southern entrance to 10 YEARS OF the Quadrangle T +61 2 9351 2812 OUR MAGAZINE F +61 2 9351 7305 A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR E [email protected] UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY It is hard to believe a decade has passed War Memorial Arch, the Quadrangle since the first issue of a joint newsletter T +61 2 9351 6883 unifying collections and programs of the F +61 2 9351 7785 University’s Macleay Museum, Nicholson E [email protected] Museum and University Art Gallery. MUSE edited by Michael Turner. Since 2007, Michael Turner, senior Produced by Marketing and Communications, the University of curator of the Nicholson Museum has Sydney, November 2013. been editor, first of the smaller Sydney University Museums News and, from 13/3372 ISSN 1449‑0420 March 2012, MUSE. ABN 15 211 513 464 A new exhibition at the Macleay Museum CRICOS 00026A I would like to extend my appreciation features a selection of items not normally to Michael for taking on this role and associated with museum collections: performing it with flair and passion. My souvenirs. Curated by Associate Professor Cover image: Jeffrey Smart, The Plastic thanks also to the University’s Marketing Tube 1980, detail, private collection, Richard White, Touring the Past: tourism and Communications team who make courtesy Sally Dan-Cuthbert Art Consultant,87t 3kg and history in poses the question © Estate of Dr Jeffrey Smart AO every issue shine, and to our numerous CO2-e CO2-e ‘How did the Australian past become an David Ellis photograph: Martin Ho contributors who continue to surprise Saved Saved object of the tourist gaze?’ OUR SECOND NATURE us with fascinating stories on our collections and programs. One souvenir in particular caught my eye; a small jug (see page 30), on loan from a private In November, the University Art Gallery collection, and made in 1925 by Tasmanian will host a special exhibition on the 2.9t 2.2t 3kgIn an unfamiliar role as guest curator, the eminent writer potter Violet Mace. It’s not the jug itself that is work of Jeffrey Smart, who passed CO2-e CO2-e CO2-e intriguing; rather its decorations. Mace chose David Malouf reveals an intimate knowledge of Jeffrey away earlier this year. Guest curator Saved Saved Saved to use the imagery from Governor Arthur’s and distinguished author David Malouf Smart’s oeuvre. His exhibition of rarely-seen works will proclamation boards produced around 1830 presents a personal view of Smart’s and posted on trees to convince Tasmanian open at the University Art Gallery in November 2013 work, titled Jeffrey Smart 1921-2013: Aboriginal people that they and Europeans Recondita Armonia – Strange Harmonies This publication is printed on environmentally and run to 7 March 2014. were equal before British law. A curious responsible paper, using vegetable-based inks, of Contrast. Drawing from our collection by SOS Print and Media, an FSC Chain of Custody memento indeed. certified printer. and rarely-seen works from private Printed on ENVI Recycled 50/50 by Spicers, Image (above): Jeffrey Smart: Night Stop, Bombay 1981, holdings, the exhibition will explore how DAVID ELLIS which is NCOS certified. This is a PEFC‑certified paper, containing 50 percent recycled fibre, made private collection Sydney, courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries Smart transformed objects from urban DIRECTOR, MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL from elemental and process chlorine free pulp derived from sustainably managed forests and landscapes into visual poetry. ENGAGEMENT non ‑controversial sources. ENVI Recycled 50/50 is Certified Carbon Neutral and Australian Paper is an ISO 14001 certified mill. ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 1 Right: Jeffrey Smart, The Plastic Tube 1980, private collection, courtesy Sally Dan‑Cuthbert Art Consultant Below left: Jeffrey Smart, Cape Dombey 1947, donated through the Alan Richard Renshaw bequest 1976, University Art Collection Below right: Jeffrey Smart, Vacant Allotment, Woolloomooloo 1947, gift of Chandler Coventry 1979, New England Regional Art Museum

Jeffrey Smart is a supremely self‑conscious artist. His output is Cape Dombey and Vacant Allotment, Woolloomooloo (both Vacant Allotment stands out as an early masterpiece, but of by comparison small – he regularly destroyed paintings he felt 1947) already present us with elements of the visual language a ‘painterly’ career that Smart chose not to pursue. When he were not up to the mark; as late as 1996 he speaks of himself as that would occupy him over the whole of his painting life. moved to Sydney in 1952, after two years overseas in which “a painter who feels the constraints caused by lack of ability”. The obelisk in the first reappears 20 years later, as we see he studied briefly in Paris and made his first overwhelming None of this is unusual. Like most artists he makes choices that here, in The Steps (1968/69) and in many other pictures. discovery of , he gave up painting for a time while he take account, in a clear‑headed self‑critical way, of his strengths, The windowless square tower of Vacant Allotment and its reassessed what sort of painter he might be. When he came which are also of course his weaknesses. This exhibition, within glowing rectangular fences form part of Smart’s repertoire back to it in the middle 1950s, he abandoned the palette knife its modest limits, attempts to track those choices. Centering of geometrical forms – cubes, squares, rectangles, circles and what he calls rather dismissively “the swirling, loaded on what seems to me to be Smart’s richest and most inventive and part‑circles, curves, quadrants and ellipses – for the next brush”, for something cooler and more detached. period, 1967–87, the exhibition is book‑ended with two paintings six decades. As early as Cahill Expressway (1962, collection National Gallery from 1947 when he was in his mid‑20s, and Labyrinth (2011), of Victoria), Smart discovered the poetry of highways, perhaps his last painting, which he embarked upon at age 90, in full from what he had seen the beginnings of in Italy in the early knowledge that it was to be his last. ’50s. But it was when he settled in Italy in the following year that the landscape of passage and destination emerged as a preoccupation that would make the world Smart worked in uniquely his own. The Italian autostrada system constitutes an enclosed, nationwide phenomenon from which Italians, with their flair for visual drama and their highly developed social sense, have created a complete world, with its own culture of monumental forms and its own coherent mythology and language: so much part of the contemporary Italian scene that they simply take it

as given. Above left: Jeffrey Smart, The Red Jeffrey Smart, with an outsider’s eye for the particular, Arrow I 1972, private collection the exotic, reads it metaphysically: in flyovers, bridges, the Above right: Jeffrey Smart, The Argument, Prenestina 1982, private baroque curve of entrances and exits; in glimpses from collection Sydney, courtesy Philip far off and in passing, towers of wrecked cars, piles of Bacon Galleries brightly coloured oil‑barrels, stacked containers, abandoned farmhouses; in men in overalls at maintenance work and prostitutes waiting for truck‑drivers at turn‑offs.

2 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 3 PACIFIC SOLUTIONS Rebecca Conway investigates one of the earliest ‘Pacific solutions’: the coerced (and forced) relocation of Pacific Islander people to Australia to solve labour shortages in the late 19th century.

It is estimated that by 1915 around 393,000 Pacific Navy -policed Pacific seas. Some Islanders did come Islanders had been enlisted into some form of colonial willingly and voluntarily, but informed consent, full disclosure contract labour. The absence of large proportions of the of employment conditions and contracts, especially in population, who were often employed far from their home multilingual and non‑literate areas, was problematic. islands and villages, had a major impact on social and Once in Australia, indentured Pacific Islander labourers cultural life. regularly faced conditions that amounted to little more than Shortage of labour was a major issue in the rapidly slavery. The work involved long, physically gruelling days developing Australian colonies. By the 1860s a Pacific in exchange for subsistence: food; water; basic clothing; solution to meet the labour demand was in full swing. Over accommodation; tobacco. A wage was ‘paid out’ and a 40‑year period, more than 60,000 people from the Islands return passage to the Pacific provided only at the end of were brought to Australia to work as indentured labourers. the indenture period. Maltreatment was common, people These men, women (and sometimes children) came from died of disease and other health issues, and many never some 80 islands across the region, but most from Vanuatu received wages. and the Solomon Islands. The principal employers were the A major port for the labour trade was Townsville where, in Jeffrey Smart, Labyrinth 2011, large sugar cane and cotton plantations of Queensland and Collection Estate of Dr Jeffrey the mid‑1870s, the Burns Philp Company was establishing Smart AO, courtesy Philip Northern New South Wales. It was a tough life, but many itself as a thriving wholesale and retail trading business Bacon Galleries people put down roots and settled in. with a successful line in Pacific shipping. The company ‘Black‑birding’ was the dark side of labour ‘recruiting’. It had a keen and shrewd eye for profitable opportunities. included kidnapping, taking people by pretense, and also The import of Pacific labourers proved, at least for a short In these figures he sees images of a secular industrial poetry, The subject of Smart’s last painting, Labyrinth, is very under duress. In an effort to control the trade, government period, to be one such opportunity. a world not of nature but of our second nature, objects and appropriately the directional problem of that most artificial of officers were assigned as monitors, and ships of the Royal occasions that, within the formal order of a style of painting all road‑systems, the maze. Not the leafy maze of the formal that is an extension as he sees it, in contemporary form, garden but what looks like a roughstone maze that might be of the Central Italian schools of the Cinquecento, are the the remains of a classical ruin. Once more, Smart’s favourite icons – real, functionally purposeful, sometimes brutal, but imagery of the journey, of passage and destination, with at also transcendentally mysterious – of what beauty and even its centre, or rather at the cross‑hairs of the Golden Mean, grandeur might be in a fast‑moving, efficient, but also isolating the old time‑traveller himself, HG Wells. Typically, the image and impersonal world. is as much literary or philosophical as visual, but instead of The vision, which comes one guesses in a brief glimpse, is hard‑edged lines and primary colours there is a return here to inward and spontaneous, but the process Smart follows in the very personal presence of the artist’s hand; of individual getting it onto the canvas is painstakingly slow. The challenge brushstrokes as the paint goes on. is to keep the image fresh. In every way Labyrinth is a final work that is managed and Too little or too much ‘surprise’ and the image can seem presented as a considered statement, about space, time, forced, confected. A compositional problem too obviously travelling, the human predicament; a demonstration of human set, and the solution, however elegant, will look like mere fragility and endurance. Most of all, it is a work that preserves, calculation or cleverness. Then there is the difficulty, for all to the very end, something of the painter’s objectivity, both artists who work as Smart did over an extended lifetime, of about himself and about his art. His belief in the form itself as what Henry James calls “keeping it up”. Of avoiding repetition the message. His urbanity and wit. or the lapse into formula; into self‑imitation, self parody. How well an artist survives all this determines how high a The exhibition Jeffrey Smart 1921-2013: Recondita Armonia place we accord him in a shaky pantheon. – Strange Harmonies of Contrast will be on display at the University Art Gallery from November 2013 to 7 March 2014. All images in this article © Estate of Dr Jeffrey Smart AO

4 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 5 Between 1883 and 1885, Burns Philp had five vessels Today the descendants of the approximately 2500 Pacific involved in the recruitment business, including the ship Islanders who remained in Australia identify themselves as Hopeful. As noted in Buckley and Klugman’s history of the Australian South Sea Islanders. Their recognition as a distinct company, in April 1883, Burns wrote to his partner, “I think cultural group was only formalised by the Commonwealth we should retract back into bona fide business but no Government in 1994, after many years of lobbying by the doubt the labour trade is a temptation but very risky”. community and its supporters. The year 2013 marked the In 1884, crew members of the Hopeful were charged with 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Pacific Islander the murder and kidnapping of Pacific Islanders. It was one indentured labourers on Australian shores. of the most notorious incidents of the day. Anxious about its reputation, the Burns Philp Company was out of the Rebecca Conway is curator for the ethnographic ‘business’ by the following year. collections at the Macleay Museum and curator of the The newly federated Australian government introduced two forthcoming exhibition Points of Focus. As a recipient of pieces of legislation that affected Pacific Islanders living in the University’s General Staff Travelling Scholarship, she Australia. The Pacific Island Labourers Act (1901) enacted travelled to Europe to examine holdings similar to those the deportation of some 7500 people who had been of the Macleay with particular emphasis on images that working in Australia, and the Immigration Restriction Act relate to the colonial history of the Pacific region and (1901) effectively barred them from ever returning. its international context, and the history, teaching and Some Islanders obtained exemptions to stay, others practice of anthropology. managed to avoid detection. Many of those sent ‘home’ From 1 March to August 2014 the Macleay Museum had been living in Australia for decades. Those born here will stage the exhibition Points of Focus: Historic were ‘repatriated’ to ‘homelands’ they had never seen. Photographs from the Pacific, revealing more images Ironically, just over 20 years after it was involved in and aspects of the shared history of Australia and the importing Pacific Islander labourers to Australia, Burns Philp Pacific Islands. won the government contract to transport people back. It The Macleay Museum holds a large collection of historic photographs from was a profitable business, with passage during 1906–1907 across the Pacific. The images featured here were all taken in the Solomon paid at the rate of about £5 per person. Around the Islands in the late 19th – early 20th century. They include a recruiting ship at Malaita and a range of images documenting the plantations and employees of same time, the company branched into Pacific plantation the Burns Philp Pacific Trading Company in the region. ownership, where wages were paid at even lower rates Previous page: HP84.60.65 than they had been in Australia. Opposite page (clockwise from top): HP90.28.2501, HP84.60.88, HP84.60.145, HP84.60.1700 Above: HP84.60.100

6 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 7 In June this year, Wendy Reade (left) undertook a project to There is also reference to copies held by the University clean the plaster Acropolis model on display in the Nicholson of Göttingen and Indiana University. It was intended by Museum. Wendy is a contract conservator and the project the Metropolitan at the outset that the model was to be was funded by an external donation. reproduced for the benefit of other smaller museums. For Wendy’s removal of many years of accumulated dirt has led this reason the model was made no larger than was necessary to the discovery of some exciting new information. We knew for a clear representation of the more important details. the model was created some time in the 1890s because of the The model is 1.6m x 1m, a scale of 1:425. INTO THE LIGHT buildings represented. However, Wendy’s cleaning revealed the In the 1905 edition of Gardner’s book, the estimated price Recent conservation work on a text “H. Walger Fecit Berlin” [“H. Walger made it, Berlin”], which for the model had risen to £30. The 1905 listing included a plaster cast of the Acropolis has has opened up new avenues of research. Interestingly, the reference to the Micheli Brothers alongside H. Walger. The maker’s name had been scratched and painted over, perhaps Micheli family had founded a plaster workshop in Berlin in 1824 uncovered a name and a place, in a deliberate effort to obliterate it, prompted by anti‑German and became well known as producers of portrait busts, statues for many years obscured, which sentiment during World War I. and sculptures. During the 1890s and early 1900s the company has brought us one step closer to What we now know is that the original model was made for was known as Atelier Gebrüder Micheli. It is possible they put New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1891 the museum the model into production for sale to universities and museums. understanding the origin of this engaged Edward Robinson, curator of classical antiquities for The actual date of the model’s completion is not clear. The New enigmatic model. Chris Jones the Boston Museum of Fine Art, to assemble a new collection York Evening Post reported on 16 August 1892 that the model, delves into its history. of casts for the Metropolitan – a task that Robinson had which Walger had been working on for a year, was nearing previously undertaken for the Slater Memorial Museum in 1888. completion. However, the Metropolitan’s Hand Book of Sculptural

Robinson had studied at the University of Berlin and used the Plaster ‑casts and Bronze Reproductions records the completed contacts he made there, including Professor Ernst Curtius, to date as 1895 and states the model “represents as accurately as assist with the acquisition of casts. For the Acropolis model, possibly the details of the various terrace and buildings in and Curtius recommended Heinrich August Walger, a Berlin around the Akropolis, as they appeared in that year”. sculptor well known for his relief maps. Walger worked with The British Museum’s 1900 Catalogue of Sculptures of the four German experts to ensure accuracy, including Curtius, Parthenon lists the model (which was in the Elgin Room) Ferdinand Georg Kawerau, Johann August Kaupert, and as: “Model of the Athenian Acropolis, by H. Walger (1898), Wilhelm Dörpfeld. showing the results of recent excavations”. The variety of Curtius was an archaeologist who had been working in Athens dates suggests that adjustments may have been made to the since 1874. Kawerau was an architectural historian who led model between 1892 and 1898. the excavation on the Acropolis in Athens from 1885 to 1890. The uncovering of the maker’s name has added new layers to Kaupert had made a topographical map of Athens in 1875 our understanding of our Acropolis model. However, we still during a trip to Greece with Curtius. Dörpfeld, a pioneer of do not know exactly when or how the Nicholson acquired the stratigraphic excavation and precise graphical documentation model. What is certain is that the model was here in 1945, as it of archaeological projects, had excavated at the Acropolis is noted in the Handbook to the Nicholson Museum of that year. with Kawerau. It is possible that the model was acquired by Professor WJ A number of copies were made of the model. The Metropolitan Woodhouse, curator of the Nicholson Museum between 1903 gave copies to the Boston Museum of Fine Art and to the Berlin and 1937. Woodhouse, like Robinson, had a passion for casts, Museum to acknowledge their assistance in the project. Percy and for their use as teaching tools. By 1930 he had acquired Gardner includes the model in his 1902 edition of Classical more than 400, many of them from Berlin. Alternatively, it may Archaeology in Schools in an appendix of resources for teaching, have been donated by an individual or institution. Hopefully with an estimated price of £25. Gardner’s entry mentions other further discoveries will be made that will reveal the answers. examples held in the Ashmolean and British Museums.

Chris Jones is the Assistant Collections Manager for Sydney University Museums

8 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 9 A new exhibition at the Macleay precinct of central Sydney, much of Another important influence was the Museum, Touring the Past: Tourism which was earmarked for demolition to architect Hardy Wilson, who encouraged and History in Australia, traces the way make way for port development following Australians to value their Georgian that tourism came to recognise how an outbreak of bubonic plague. Their architecture, especially through his 1924 Australia’s past could be a drawcard. work was part record, part nostalgia, but book Old Colonial Architecture in New Visual imagery, from high art to popular increasingly nostalgia won out. South Wales and Tasmania. Tourists culture, played an important role in Eirene Mort (1879‑1977) studied began to appreciate old stately homes training the tourist’s eye to find pleasure medieval art and etching in London such as Vaucluse House (bought by in what was old. It taught tourists that where she was influenced by the the government in 1911 and opened to what they thought were dilapidated English arts and crafts movement. tourists in 1920). But they also found eyesores could be considered romantic She established a studio in Sydney and beauty in vernacular cottages and farm ruins; that the old‑fashioned could be went on to etch and draw many historic buildings, giving their rustic dilapidation charming and picturesque; that the out buildings around Sydney, and an overlay of nostalgia. of date was quaint. Hobart. In 1914, she taught etching It wasn’t just professional artists In the 1890s, artists of the ‘Heidelberg to the 19‑year‑old Sydney Ure Smith, encouraging the tourist gaze. Postcards School’, such as Tom Roberts and who became an increasingly influential rarely promoted historic sites in Australia Fred McCubbin, made their name artist, publisher, art promoter and but some did. One popular subject was capturing the Australian landscape. conservationist. In his journal Art in the sentimental depiction of the generic But in some of their work they also Australia he promoted his own work and ‘old bush hut’. In 1914, James Tyrrell made use of Australia’s bushranging the etchings of Mort, Victor Cobb, who published two sets of postcards of and pioneering past. This interest in captured many of ’s older historic sites using the photographs of history was extended in the new century buildings, and Lionel Lindsay, perhaps Frank Walker, a keen ‘history tourist’ who when more artists began scouring the the best of them, who took to depicting cycled some 35,000 kilometres in search countryside for picturesque decrepitude. old Sydney in mezzotint from 1920. of the vestiges of Australia’s past. These artists realised that old colonial architecture and romantic ruins were in danger of disappearing through development or neglect. They were among the first conservationists. Many took up etching as their preferred medium, itself an older craft threatened by the advent of modern photography. NOSTALGIA They gave to their choice of subject a treatment that emphasised the charm AN AUSTRALIAN AESTHETIC of the past, in contrast to the ugly hard edges of modernity. Etchings had the advantage of being more affordable ‘high’ art for a broader and growing Above: Old farmhouse, Castle Hill, Australians have often felt they lacked Artist, Isabel MacKenzie, c.1930, middle‑class audience. These works Art Gallery: promoted the pleasures of visiting the rich history and romantic ruins of the UA1990.510 historic towns such as Windsor, Opposite page: Postcard: Bush Richmond, Campbelltown and Camden. old world. Nevertheless this society, so Hut Gembrook, c. 1907, Printed by convinced it was ‘new’, did gradually acquire J.W.K & Co, Private collection Modernity in the form of bicycles and a nostalgia for its past. Richard White motor cars made it possible. In 1902, Julian Ashton persuaded the describes how, as tourists, Australians NSW government to fund a group gradually learned to see the past in the of artists to paint the historic Rocks landscape around them.

10 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 11 PRECISION RULES!

This year the Macleay Museum received a substantial gift of precision instruments, along with the funds to conserve and register them, thanks to the generosity of Dr Valerie Havyatt, one of the University’s first female doctoral graduates in architecture and a long‑time supporter of the University museums. Jude Philp reports.

Above: An old landmark, c.1905 -1915, Published by Kerry & Co, Private collection Left: The Stockade, Vaucluse, Artist, Eirene Mort, 1912, National Library of Australia

Val (as she is known to everyone at At the same time Val assisted curator Val’s favourite piece in her collection, an The publishing firm of Sydney University Museums) has had Julian Holland with work on the early Fuller cylindrical slide rule, testifies Rigby produced a series of about 175 a long association with the University University’s scientific instrument to her aesthetic eye, collector’s passion Sketchbooks between 1966 and 1982, of Sydney where she first came as collection, then housed in the and research scope. This beautiful mostly based on rural towns and depicting an undergraduate student in 1944, old carpenters’ workshop (since instrument (pictured above), takes the rustic farm buildings, old‑fashioned returning to complete a Master of demolished) that was part of the functionality of the flat slide rule but architecture, colonial mansions, quaint Building Science in 1968 and a PhD in Woolley Building. This was a period uses a cylinder to make it compact, and streetscapes and picturesque slums. The Architecture in 1972. Although she met of expansion in the Macleay science increase the accuracy. It can hold a motif of the old farmhouse in particular her husband Alaric (Ric) just behind the collection, with large numbers of objects scale of 500 inches length, compared to became a standard, reproduced in multiple Macleay Museum (during preparations and instruments coming in. At home, the standard 10‑inch slide rule. forms by both professional and amateur for a theatrical performance), it was Val worked to refine her own collection, At the forefront of the collecting artists and in an assortment of tourist art not until she undertook her Diploma in ultimately specialising in precision interests for both Val and Ric Havyatt and popular craft. Museum Studies in 1978 that she began drawing instruments and slide rules. was a desire to preserve and research her association with the Macleay. For those who grew up in the age of aspects of technology that were fast Sketching tours in search of a historic collection discovered in 1951 – led to a This complicated interdependence of Following her graduation in Museum electronic and digital technologies, slide becoming redundant. With this donation rather than merely natural landscape significant boost in country town tourism. tourist expectations, high art, popular Studies, Val began her own collection. rules are something of a conceptual the Macleay can further document and were common by the mid 20th century. culture and souvenirs is one of the Other artists who etched, drew or With her strong background in building challenge, with their intriguing markings share in the legacy of measuring and In 1947, artists and Russell features of the exhibition. painted old Australia included Lloyd Rees, science and architecture, it is no surprise and workings. Essentially they are calculating before electronic calculation Drysdale read a Sydney Morning Herald Albert N Clarke, Sali Herman, Unk White, that it was the instruments of these mechanical calculators, made for general was possible. article about ‘a journey through history’ Cedric Emmanuel and Allan Gamble. Richard White recently retired from disciplines that caught her eye and she mathematical calculations and for highly among the old gold towns of the Turon. the Department of History at the began investing in precision instruments. specialised use, such as calculating They then went and ‘discovered’ Sofala This aesthetic became something of University of Sydney, where he taught She applied her new skills in museums the age, weight and height of a patient Dr Jude Philp is Senior Curator of and Hill End for themselves, producing a formula that spread down‑market Australian history and the history of studies towards this pursuit, conducting against time of exposure to x‑ray (see the Macleay Museum. some of their best‑known work. to conventional souvenir work. A travel and tourism. His books include past on the edge of slipping away meticulous research and keeping an above). In terms of their manufacture, Top: Val’s Fuller rule. George Fuller, Professor of Friend and Drysdale wrote of Hill End’s offered tourists a nostalgic escape Inventing Australia, On Holidays: A eye on trade literature, auctions, fairs slide rules epitomise good design Engineering at Queen’s College Belfast, patented “sense of history, its charm, of form and History of Getting Away in Australia and societies in her search for pieces of practice: being a complex instrument his design in 1878. From 1900, Fuller’s rules were from progress. With their motifs of date stamped. Val’s version is not dated – which dignity, its life of contrast that its roots tumbledown buildings and evocative and Symbols of Australia. He curated interest, and literature that would help that is physically robust, accurate and indicates that it was made before 1900. The in the past give it”. Their paintings in Touring the Past as part of an in interpretation. intuitive to use. brass internal cylinder also has one owner’s name old‑world landscapes, artists appealed engraved upon it. Hill End – alongside works by Margaret to tourists’ picturesque sensibilities and Australian Research Council project Olley, Paul Haefliger and Above: Schall & Son radiographic slide rule c.1912. encouraged them to go looking for more. examining the emergence of history Macleay Museum SC1977.4. and the famous Holtermann photograph tourism in Australia. Photograph: © Michael Myers

12 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 13 Candace Richards introduces the world of museum tweeting. #collectionfishing

How do you discuss diverse collections, Themes vary from marking a specific provide anecdotes from museum occasion, like: staff, debate hard science, history #Royal for the Queen’s Birthday and art theory, entertain the masses, and maintain conversations between #science for National Science Week the general public and other cultural to the random, such as: institutions, all in 140 characters or less? #TheLetterP Welcome to museums on Twitter. Or, our suggestion of #food, simply The Nicholson Museum, Macleay because I was tweeting while hungry! Museum, University Art Gallery and Each theme provides a new avenue to the University Museum Education explore our collections and stretches program are all on Twitter, and other our knowledge in the search for artists, social media platforms, as a medium ‘Royal Hotel Canowindra’ Kerry and Co. HP83.60.4723 objects or specimens that reflect our for direct engagement with the diverse diversity. It also offers a new medium audiences interested in museums and for showcasing our collections and collections worldwide. research that may not be currently Earlier this year, each of our three on public display or accessible to a gallery twitter accounts joined other worldwide audience. cultural institutions in tweeting for Follow us on @nicholsonmuseum, #collectionfishing. @sydneyuniart, @macleaymuseum and Each week a theme is suggested and our education staff @sydneyunimuseum. museums and galleries search their online collections and image databases to find an appropriate collection item Candace Richards is Curatorial related (literally or esoterically) to the Assistant at the Nicholson Museum. selected theme. We then post a link to our object or artwork on our twitter pages, tagged with the # for all of our followers to see.

‘Adam and Eve’, Michiel Coxcie the Elder, UA1865.3 Athenian kylix, NM98.22

14 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 15 Above and below: specimens from TREASURE AMIDST the rock room THE DUST

Naomi Shapira is a student of Museum Studies and an intern with the Macleay Museum. That means she spends a lot of time in museums! Here, she explains some of the practicalities and privileges of handling geological specimens.

They never tell you about the dust. Mind you, those early collectors certainly rich in precious minerals or metals: As a student tasked with auditing the knew their stuff about nearly everything a lump of silver, an uncut ruby. Even historic geoscience collection deep in else, showing a remarkable eye for the the information accompanying the most fascinating specimens. One of specimens can be fascinating – such LEGO AND MUSEUMS the basement of the Madsen Building, you invariably end up covered in it – the the privileges of sorting through a large as a crumbling envelope, addressed several pairs of gloves you wear per day, collection of this age are the treasures by hand from Edgeworth David to you find, nestled in plain cardboard Lieutenant Hideka of the Soya; itself a your shoes, your every belonging. So far, the Nicholson Museum has displayed two fantastic boxes – an Aladdin’s cave of minerals. historical item, never mind the lump of Philosopher and Paralympian LEGO exhibitions. The first was the LEGO Colosseum, an It’s rock dust, for the most part – With each new drawer, new treasures lava it accompanies. Sarah Stewart tells us what’s so incredibly intricate and impressive piece of architecture – drifting out as you carry heavy drawers are revealed. You may find a perfect (“What have you got in here, rocks?” Down in the rock room of the Madsen, special about the latest LEGO worth seeing for the detail in the arches alone. opal, or deep fuchsia erythrite. You could the fluorescent lights flickering and the “Well, yes.”). It gets into the workspace, The second is the LEGO Acropolis, which is not only a great discover green crystal as clear as glass, fans deafening, the history of collecting exhibition – the Acropolis – at the clinging to your gloves as you turn build, but added an impressive array of minifigures who incongruous and almost artificial‑looking both in Australia and overseas is tangible over an interesting specimen to find Nicholson Museum. participate in a number of scenes, representing people of note among more solid‑looking pieces. and real. All you need to do is look identification marks, or dig through a Perhaps you’ll turn over a lumpy grey who have visited the original Acropolis over the years. At the box to pluck out the label that will tell deeply, and you will find the treasures rock, expecting more grey, only to find I love LEGO. I love museums. So it may come as no surprise grand opening of the exhibition, I watched young and old alike you what you’re holding. hidden beneath the dust. that it glints with all the colours of that I think the Nicholson’s use of LEGO is just perfect. having enormous fun finding and ‘ticking off’ those notable Of course, exposure to rock dust is the rainbow. people and events from the past. The most recent example of my LEGO/museums fascination somewhat inevitable when you’re dealing Naomi’s display of collection pieces Amidst the grey and brown are vivid, was at the end of the London Paralympics – the culmination There is something amazing about these little LEGO bricks – with rocks. This is less than reassuring from the rock room is on display in the glorious colours: glossy teals, neon of years of hard work and, specifically, more than a month that with enough imagination and perseverance can be turned when you suddenly realise you’ve been foyer of the Madsen Building, just near yellows, lively oranges, midnight blues. straight of intensive training and playing basketball in Europe into almost anything we can think up. And there is something handling a piece of asbestos, say, or a the City Road entrance. Beneath your gloves, you feel textures and the UK. We had a day and a half of leave before our equally fascinating about museums – how with just a few pieces metallic‑looking arsenopyrite crystal (not as smooth as satin, or with etched lines scheduled flight back to Australia. Some of the others were from the past they can transport us to many eras of history. quite fool’s gold, but certainly foolish if like a miniature city built into the side of out celebrating, but I had planned my remaining time and went Together, LEGO and museums make fantastic companions. you manage to ingest any of its dust). a mountain. Hidden pockets of gleaming to bed early so I could fit in a visit to both LEGOLAND Windsor Hazardous materials are all part of native copper hide in the pits and and the British Museum in the few spare hours before we flew Sarah Stewart is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the the experience though; something to hollows of rocks that, at first glance, are out. It was well worth it. Both were absolutely brilliant! University of Sydney. Outside the classroom she is a expect when you audit a collection utterly ordinary. LEGO in museums is something I see as a great idea on wheelchair basketball player who has represented Australia that probably hasn’t been looked at for The idea of hidden treasures is two counts. Firstly, it’s a brilliant and imaginative use of the in more than 150 international games and won numerous decades, if not longer (one set dates somewhat of a theme for this collection. LEGO brick to celebrate wonders of the past. Secondly, it’s awards and medals, most recently a silver at the 2012 back to the mid 19th century). Collectors A plain rock, to the untrained eye, can an engaging entry point into museums for little kids (and big Summer Paralympics in London. She currently plays for the in 1866 did not know that asbestos reveal amazing details when examined kids), who know they love LEGO but may forgotten how great Sydney Uni Flames and Wheelkings clubs. would later become known as one of the more closely, or when the labels museums are, until LEGO gets them in the door again! most hazardous substances around. tell you you’re looking at something

16 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 17 My favourite parts of the LEGO Acropolis are the mini‑figures, My mum’s favourite mini‑figures are the actors performing partly because I made lots of them! Also, they are really funny. Oedipus Rex in the theatre. My brother likes the philosopher in I like ‘Gandalf the Greek’, Elton John, Agatha Christie and, my a barrel. Apparently, there’s a story that he pees on people if THE LEGO favourite – me! he doesn’t like their questions. (That seems a bit rude to me.) To make the LEGO mini‑figures, I went to Ryan McNaught’s If you liked the LEGO Colosseum, you should definitely come house in Melbourne – he is the LEGO master who built the and see the Acropolis. I recommend it to all LEGO fans ACROPOLIS Acropolis. He works in his garage. There is so much LEGO in and people who like history, or even better, LEGO‑loving there, it’s not funny! (Well, actually it is.) history geeks! WHERE GREAT The first thing he asked me to do was help build the rocky mountainside. I used lots of small grey single bricks to make Eight‑year‑old Bill Blake is a regular MUSE contributor. He EXPLORERS MEET it look random and bumpy. We didn’t want it to look smooth. also writes children’s theatre reviews for Time Out Sydney Ryan explained Colour Theory to me but I didn’t really get it. online. Check out his blog at billybob7.blogspot.com.au Then he asked me to make some mini‑figures. He gave me lots of legs, heads and bodies and said to make little people. From keen observer to LEGO I made myself and my brother, Thom. We are both eating architect‑in‑training, Bill Blake joins icecreams. If you look closely at the model, you can see me standing next to the souvlaki van. I’m the one numerous devotees of history paying with orange hair. My brother is in the homage to the Acropolis at the audience watching Elton John. He’s Nicholson Museum. wearing a red and blue jacket and has brown hair.

18 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 19 A fascination with the human body, mind, and spirit has been tasked to interpret or express the themes of the exhibition documented in art for millennia. Simultaneously familiar and in their pieces. Performance art is inherently physical, and perplexing, the human form and condition provides artists at the same time transient, delivering a heightened human with endless material. Our bodies, emotions, and roles in experience that intensifies physical and mental awareness. society have been understood, interpreted, and represented in The performance pieces were complemented by dramatic countless ways over centuries of art production. qualities found in a selection of the static works. In particular, The exhibition, being, drew artworks from the University Noel Counihan’s Hunger (1959) has a raw and visceral energy of Sydney Union (USU) art collection that explore the created by the figure’s submissive yet ardent pose, emphasised human form and what it means to exist – to be – physically, through the sharp dagger‑like scratch marks of the print. emotionally, spiritually, and collectively. Not only did the Michael Riley’s portrait Tracey [Moffat] (1986) engages the exhibition examine the multifaceted concept of human viewer on a psychological level with a direct and arresting stare. existence, it showcased the calibre of artists represented in Moffatt’s head is held by hands on either side, though it is USU’s collection. ambiguous whether these hands belong to her or someone else. Accumulated over the past 100 years, the USU boasts Her face appears to be cracked, giving the impression that it is a rich and diverse collection of more than 700 works by made of marble, a strong yet easily damaged stone, suggesting internationally regarded artists dating back to the 17th century. people are similarly paradoxical – both strong and fragile. Featuring names such as Sidney Nolan, Rah Fizelle, Charles The inclusion of performance art in the exhibition program Blackman, Noel Counihan, Michael Riley and Del Kathryn delivered an approach in the current trend of interdisciplinary Barton, being. brought together an impressive selection of display. The recent exhibition 13 Rooms in Sydney earlier this Australian artistic talent. year ignited a strong interest for performance art. In the same The artworks vary in their representations of the human way, being. aimed to create a fresh and engaging dialogue with figure. Ranging from the abstracted interpretation of human students and a public audience. physicality in Meg Buchanan’s Ideology Waltz (1991), to the photorealistic image presented by Peter Yee in Voyeur II (1979), the wide array of styles offers a thorough exploration India Bednall and Julian Woods are the current USU Art of the human body, and what it means to be, through an Collection Officers (for 2013). India is studying a Master of artist’s eye. Art Curatorship, while Julian is completing his Bachelor of Arts with a major in History and Art History. Accompanying the display of visual art from the collection were performance works by local artists Victoria Baldwin and Brenden Hooke, Frankie Chow, Zsuzsanna Ihar and Dylan Batty, Anthony Alston, and Stella Ktenas Karver, who were

Peter Yee, Voyeur II (1979), synthetic polymer paint on canvas. All efforts have been made to contact the artist in regards to obtaining image reproduction rights. In this case we have been unable to identify the artist. If you have any information, or believe that we have acted in breach of copyright, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

USU ART COLLECTION A recent exhibition of works OFFICERS’ ANNUAL EXHIBITION from the USU art collection celebrated the theme of being: alive, aware, existing in space and time. Art Collection Officers India Bednall and Julian Woods describe the mix being. of portraits and performance art brought together to represent this evocative theme.

Above: Noel Couniham, Hunger (1959), linocut, © the Counihan Estate Left: Meg Buchanan, Ideology Waltz (1991), etching 15/55, © courtesy the artist

20 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 21 The Nicholson Museum’s Surprising as it may seem to a modern Zora and David had two children newspaper reader, poetry was not together, both of whom she raised and ‘child mummy’ has drawn uncommon in the pages of the Sydney supported alone in their Blue Mountains many viewers. One was A Little Girl’s Mummy Morning Herald in the early 20th home after the tragic loss of her partner. century. ‘Current Literature’ was a This was not Zora’s first great tragedy. the poet Zora Cross, who The Nicholson Museum regular Saturday column featuring not Her first‑born child, a daughter, died in penned this sonnet in only reviews but also short stories, infancy, shortly after she completed her response to the figure. book excerpts and poetry. Published in teaching qualifications. Then sorrowfully she pressed her small, hot head September 1930, ‘A Little Girls Mummy’ Just as her passionate affair with David Candace Richards looks by the Australian poet Zora Cross found Close to her mother’s heart, weary of play. was a source of poetic inspiration, into the University’s Rare inspiration in the Nicholson Museum could the death of Zora’s daughter Book collection for insight They put her reed shoes quietly away, collection to express the emotions of a be the emotional catalyst behind her mother in mourning for her child. But response to the child mummy in the into the writer and her And watched her toss upon her fever bed. who was this poet? How did she choose thread, Nicholson Museum? inspirations. her subject? What relationship, if any, did Lone stayed the red clay beads she longed to she have with the Nicholson Museum? Zora Cross’s connection with the museum was not wholly by chance. Her The swing her father made untouched that day. At the time of the poem’s publication, personal papers and correspondences, Zora Cross was a well‑established poet Oh, the blue Nile as grief itself was grey archived in the University of Sydney’s and author. Born in Brisbane in 1890, Rare Book collection, provide insight into When terribly they whispered, “She is dead.” she grew up in Sydney and attended her private life and relationships. Among the Sydney Teachers College in the 21 boxes of material, various pieces 1909‑10 (which 80 years later became of correspondence dated to the 1920s Poor mother, weeping for your little one, the University of Sydney’s Faculty and 30s reveal Zora’s close friendship of Education). with Professor Frederick Todd. Long, long‑so long ago! Osiris true For three years Zora worked as a Professor Todd (1880–1944) began his With prayers propitiating, so that she teacher before establishing herself as a career as an assistant lecturer in Latin literary journalist and poet. Thematically in 1903 at the University of Sydney, Raised up again might be, here ‘neath this sun her poetry ranged from youth and eventually becoming Chair of the children to romance, loss, history and, Be sure we view your child with reverence due Department in 1922. In 1935, he acted more scandalously, love and lust. as Honorary Curator of the Nicholson Where she, still trusting, waits … It is for the latter that she is most Museum while Professor William how sorrowfully! well known. Zora’s compilation of Woodhouse (Curator 1903–37) was on poetry Songs of Love and Life (1917) leave. It is during this period that the is regarded as the “the first sustained Nicholson was opened to students and Zora Cross expression in Australian poetry of the public on a regular basis (initially erotic experience from a woman’s Tuesday and Thursday afternoons), The Sydney Morning Herald, point of view” (Australian Biographical offering Zora, and other interested Saturday, September 20, 1930 Dictionary). The book received members of the public, easier access to many favourable reviews from her the treasures within. contemporaries. A LITTLE GIRL’S MUMMY, It was not only for her erotic poetry 80 YEARS LATER that she was known, but also for her scandalous private life. Zora, although The subject of death in antiquity has not married between 1910 and 1922 to only captured the imagination of poets, Stuart Smith, refused to live with him but also continues to inspire modern and had at least two significant love research. In 2009, the child mummy of ZORA’S UNLIKELY affairs. The first resulted in the birth of the Nicholson’s collection was examined her son, Norman Gavin in 1914, and the using a medical CT scanner. Initial second was an enduring relationship analysis by forensic Egyptologist Janet with fellow writer David McKee Wright, Davey determined no obvious cause INSPIRATION until his early death in 1928. At the time of death, however one vital piece of of Zora and David’s meeting, David information was obtained. The little girl was divorced with four sons, and it was in fact a little boy! is thought that their affair was the Mummified child from Thebes, inspiration for Zora’s early poetic work. early 2nd century AD. From original Candace Richards is Curatorial collection of Sir Charles Nicholson, Assistant at the Nicholson Museum. 1860. Inv. no. NMR 26

22 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 23 MARTUWARRA

A gift from Edith “Martuwarra (river) country, ngapa bananas, has informed her practice. (water), kapi (fish) in the water, parlka She began painting at Mangkaja Arts Lees to the Faculty (barramundi), one river longa billabong, Resource Agency in the early 1990s. The of Agriculture and big river near Nookanbah. Rocks and art centre evolved out of the Karrayili tree and gettim that fish that parlka Adult Education Centre established in Environment celebrates (barramundi).” – Sonia Kurarra 1981. It was a centre for local people Australia’s indigenous Martuwarra refers to river country in who wanted to learn English and soon connection to the land the West Kimberley, Western Australia, broadened to become a place where – beautifully captured a place where the artist Sonia Kurarra they could study and paint their personal grew up and now works, painting the stories. At Mangkaja, Sonia also helped by artist Sonia sandy billabongs along the Fitzroy River. the kindergarten teacher to instruct local children in art and dance. Kurarra. The story Martuwarra depicts what happens behind the painting after the flood waters recede, an event In 2012, Sonia was the recipient of the creating billabongs teeming with parlka Most Outstanding Work award at the is brought to us by (barramundi) which swim on the surface prestigious Headland Art Awards. In Katrina Liberiou. of the water. Once caught, the parlka 2010, she won the Indigenous section are then cooked on the surrounding for both the Headland and West parrmarr (rocks) overseen by the Wakiri Australian Art Awards. (Pandanus) with their broad canopy of Dr Edith Lees, an Honorary Senior strap‑shaped leaves. Lecturer from the Faculty of Agriculture The layering of luminous orange and and Environment at the University of turquoise paint with strong, decisive Sydney, has generously donated this brushstrokes gives a sense of movement wonderful painting to her faculty and and activity brought on by these it is now part of the University Art weather conditions. The painting evokes Collection. Dr Lees personally selected the sound of the splashing water; the the work because of its relation to Sonia Kurarra, Martuwarra (2013), conversations and laughter of the agriculture and the environment, in acrylic paint on canvas, 90 x 90cm, particular water, soil and landscape. purchased with funds from Dr Edith community and smell of the cooked fish Lees. Transferred from the Faculty so keenly sought. of Agriculture and Environment, the University of Sydney Sonia Kurarra was born on a Kimberley Katrina Liberiou is Curatorial Assistant Sonia Kurarra, Skin: Nampiyinti, cattle station in 1952, and her bush at the University Art Gallery. Language: Walmajarri, Country: Noonkanbah food, including fish, turtle and bush

24 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 25 Visitors to the Camperdown campus can now enjoy a guided THE art walking tour around the University, exploring famous sculptures such as Tom STUDENT Bass’s The Student, along with other publicly accessible modernist works on campus. AND THE Alan Spackman, designer of the tour, explains why Bass deserves TOUR to be rediscovered.

While developing the tour, Alan Spackman met with sculptor The Student has a monolithic scale and its proportions work Tom Bass’ partner, Dr Margo Hoekstra, and was able to access beautifully in the context of its position – inside the main remarkable photographs by Axel Poignant from Bass’ archives gate with its back to the hubbub of Parramatta Road. Its (soon to move to the National Library of Australia). These design rhythm flows into internal reflection and study, and photographs show the creation of The Student, a sandstone unconsciously reimagines Rodin’s The Thinker. The sculpture sculpture carved at Minto, NSW, when Bass was 37. expresses the idea, for Bass, “that the University is not just a The Student, acquired in 1953, is the University’s earliest place of teaching but also of learning”. modernist public artwork. The cubist‑style figurative sculpture In his autobiography, Tom Bass: Totem Maker, Bass describes stands at the University’s main gate. his philosophy of sculpture as ‘totem making’. He argues that, During the years of post‑war economic growth in Australia, throughout the ages, sculpture “has had a totemic function many architects and sculptors shared a modernist aesthetic in society, and through sculpture, people, communities and sensibility that favoured simplicity over ornamentation, as well societies have been reminded of the things that are most as an allied social purpose aimed at influencing the way people important to them”. experience the built environment through the arts and sciences. His other works on campus include The Arts and Sciences – Reflecting on this post‑war optimism in art and architecture, two (reconstituted stone) figures commissioned by Dr Lloyd Bass wrote in 1957: “the architects are ready for us; the Rees in 1984, which are in the eastern wall niches of Edmund building has a new form; a new relationship between sculpture Blacket’s Great Hall. The figures include a female singing – and architecture that has to be worked out. I recommend this a totem for the arts, and a male figure gesturing a rational vast field for genuine experiment”. thought with his hands – a totem for the sciences. In 1953, Bass was the winner of a public art competition Bass gained an honorary doctorate from the University for a sculpture to be placed in the campus grounds. The of Sydney on 6 April 2009. Sadly, he died a year later. He competition was organised by Denis Winston, the first leaves an enduring legacy to public sculpture, not just at the Professor of Town Planning at the University of Sydney, University of Sydney, but throughout Australia. With more and Founding President of the Sydney Sculpture Society. than 50 sculptures on public display nationally, Bass has played Winston had designed a driveway and garden path from a key role in developing the enduring relationship between the main University gate on Parramatta Road leading to the sculpture, the built environment and architecture. Quadrangle, with an octagonal plinth at the pivot point of To book a group to explore The Student and other modernist the new pathway. Bass would use the octagonal plinth as the works on a guided art walking tour, please contact us on (02) foundational shape for the base of his sculpture. 9351 8746 or email [email protected]. The cost is $13.50 per person ($7.50 per senior citizen). Tours are available Monday to Friday for groups of more than five.

Alan Spackman is an Education Officer at the University Art Gallery. Tom Bass, The Student (1953), sandstone sculpture (UA1955.5)

26 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 27 OUT AND ABOUT 4

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PLEASE ACCEPT MY: 1. The Nicholson Museum was packed to 4. Dr Craig Barker gave a lecture in the Nicholson 7. Michael Turner introduces his talk on Goethe’s • Cheque • Money order • Credit card overflowing with the young and not so young on Museum on the archaeology of Marrickville’s travels in Italy, part of the Nicholson Museum’s (Please make payable to The University of Sydney) the opening day of the Lego Acropolis exhibition sister cities in the Mediterranean region as part 2013 free Saturday afternoon lecture series in July of the 2013 Marrickville Open Festival. L to r: Italy: Travels Through Art, History & Culture Michael Christodolou of the Cyprus Community 2. Artist Shane Haseman speaking at the 8. Dr Jude Philp, senior curator of the Macleay Name: CREDIT CARD DETAILS of New South Wales; Craig Barker; the Mayor University Art Gallery’s Symposium on on a visit to the Macleay’s longest-serving • Visa • MasterCard of Marrickville, Victor Macri; Marrickville Address: Conceptual Art held on 5 October volunteer Dr Val Havyatt (see story page 13) Councillor David Leary Card No: ———— ———— ———— ———— (———) 3. ‘Give me the child. I’ll give you the man’. You’re 9. Macleay staff, interns and museum studies 5. Fond farewells from Sydney University PLEASE ACCEPT MY GIFT OF: never too young to become a hoplite at the volunteers helping pack the Keleny collection Cardholder’s name: Museums’ Director David Ellis and staff at the Nicholson Museum! Lego Acropolis opening day for the National Museum and Art Gallery • $50 • $100 • $250 • Other $ Macleay to interns Brian and Clare from Hong Expiry: / Signature: of Papua New Guinea (Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible) —— —— Kong Baptist University Phone: 10.The Nicholson’s Museum’s annual Trivia Night, 6. Rowan Conroy at the opening in August of I WOULD LIKE TO ALLOCATE MY DONATION TO: hosted by quizmaster Dr Craig Barker, was his exhibition at the Australian Centre for • Digitisation Program • Acquisitions Email: another rousing success. And the winners were Photography, ‘The Woodhouse Rephotography – for the second year running! – a Marketing • Macleay Museum • Conservation • Please send me information about how I can remember the University Project’. The project draws on photographs, now and Communications team: Terence Ryan, Jane • Nicholson Museum • Research of Sydney in my will. in the Nicholson Museum, of Greece taken in the Clements, Nick Evans, Natalie Costa-Bir and 1890s -early 1900s by museum curator William • University Art Gallery • Museums and Art Gallery priorities • I confirm that I have included the University of Sydney in my will. Kevin Truong. Congratulations all! Woodhouse. Photograph: Ben Stone‑Herbert

Sydney University Museums, A14/H120 T +61 2 9351 2274 E [email protected] ABN 15 211 513 464 CRICOS 00026A 29 University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia F +61 2 9351 2881 sydney.edu.au/museums CFN 10369 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 Left: Jeffrey Smart, The Underpass 1986/87, Parliament WHAT’S ON House Art Collection © Estate of Dr Jeffrey Smart AO AT SYDNEY Right: Ceramic mug made in 1925 by Tasmanian potter UNIVERSITY Violet Mace, from the exhibition Touring the Past: tourism and MUSEUMS history in Australia Legionnaire Duck, one of the many new types DECEMBER 2013 SCHOOL HOLIDAY HERITAGE TOURS of merchandise Public events are subject to available at the ACTIVITIES AND EDUCATION Saturday 7 December, 2pm Nicholson Museum. Fun activities all day for children change. For further information See pages 32 and PROGRAMS 33 for more. Italy: Travels through Art, History aged 5-12 years, with arts and craft and to view the latest timetable, and Culture lecture series activities running throughout each Sydney University Museums offer day. Entry is by gold coin donation. extensive school (K-12) and adult visit sydney.edu.au/museums ITALIAN VILLAS AND GARDENS education programs and group AND THEIR AFTERLIFE FEBRUARY 2014 JANUARY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS heritage tours. and click on ‘What’s on’. Kathleen Olive (Academy Travel) For more information email us at Cost: free Saturday 1 February, 2pm Monday 13 January [email protected] Venue: Nicholson Museum Italy: Travels through Art, History Nicholson Museum: Walk Like and Culture – The 2014 Academy an Egyptian! Travel Lecture Series Saturday 7 December, 3.30pm VASES AND VOLCANOES: THE Wednesday 15 January In conversation series NOVEMBER 2013 EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF Macleay Museum: Bushrangers, DAVID MALOUF IN CONVERSATION SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON IN NAPLES explorers and artists: discover Saturday 2 November, 2pm Thursday 14 November, 6pm WITH CHRISTOPHER ALLEN Michael Turner FSA Australia’s history! Cost: free (Nicholson Museum) Italy: Travels through Art, History and ALEXANDER THE GREAT: Cost: free Friday 17 January Culture lecture series A YEAR OF REVELATIONS Venue: General Lecture Theatre 1 Art Gallery: Smart Art Professor Robert Milns AM (University Venue: Nicholson Museum THE FATAL GIFT OF BEAUTY: of Queensland) Tuesday 17 December, 6pm ITALY THROUGH TRAVELLER’S EYES Friday 5 February, 6pm IN THE LATE 19th CENTURY Cost: $32 ($25 for Friends of the Public lecture Dr Giorgia Alù (University of Sydney) Nicholson Museum) A night of slides, poems and ACTIVITIES FOR TREASURES FROM THE merriment Cost: free Venue: Nicholson Museum THAMES: LONDON’S LONGEST CHILDREN BACK TO … THE PAST Venue: Nicholson Museum ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE Come and see the World’s Largest Thursday 28 November, 5pm Nathalie Cohen FSA (Museum of Cost: free LEGO Athenian Acropolis Wednesday 6 November, 6-8pm Film Launch London Archaeology) Venue: Macleay Museum Cost: $32 ($25 for Friends of the Saturday 1 February, 12-4pm Exhibition Opening LON MARUM: PEOPLE OF THE Nicholson Museum) Wednesday 19 February 6.30pm VOLCANO Children’s Day JEFFREY SMART EXHIBITION Venue: Nicholson Museum Friends of the Nicholson Museum First Australian screening of this YEAR OF THE HORSE: A CHILDREN’S Cost: free Summer Party Vanuatu film with Q&As with DAY FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR the filmmakers Venue: University Art Gallery SILKS AND SENMURVS: THE Cost: free Cost: free JANUARY 2014 WORLD OF SASANIAN PERSIA Thomas Phillips, Lord Byron in Albanian Dress (1813) Venue: Macleay Museum Tuesday 12 November, 5pm Venue: Macleay Museum Dr John Tidmarsh Held in conjunction with the Wednesday 15 January, 4.30pm Cost: $30 (Friends of the Nicholson Burrinja’s Pacific and Australian art City of Sydney Chinese New Year Museum) with Pimms and cucumber collections and programs Summer at the Museum lecture Festival 2014 series sandwiches on the lawns JD Mittmann (Visual Arts Manager) Venue: Nicholson Museum Cost: free BYRON IN GREECE Follow us on Twitter at Derek Parker (renowned author All details are correct at the time of Venue: Macleay Museum 21 February 5pm twitter.com/#sydneyunimuseum and biographer of Byron) going to press but events may change Book Launch Of find us on Facebook by searching Cost: $32 ($25 Friends of the due to circumstances beyond our Please see the inside front cover Nicholson Museum) with Devonshire MELANESIA: ART AND ENCOUNTER for Sydney University Museums. control. For up-to-date information, visit for contact details for the Macleay Cream Tea on the lawns Cost: free The Nicholson Museum, Macleay Museum our website (sydney.edu.au/museums) Museum, the Nicholson Museum and University Art Gallery also have their closer to the event, and follow the link Venue: Nicholson Museum Venue: Macleay Museum and the University Art Gallery. own Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. marked ‘University calendar’.

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9 MUSEUM SHOP 8 The Nicholson Museum introduces a selection of merchandise sourced from around the world and themed 3 to the museum’s collections.

Visit the Nicholson Museum to see the full 11 range or order by ringing 9351 2812. Enquiries: [email protected]. 10 All profits go back into the museum.

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1 Pax Romana CD $29.95 8 Silk ties $49.95 (14 designs available) 2 Ducks (Sphinx; Legionnaire) $10 9 Roman lamp $19 3 Bronze animals (Greek owl; Egyptian cat; 10 Greek alphabet mug $19.95 (24 designs available) Greek horse) $10 11 Meet the Greeks – 3D cards (12 gods and heroes 5 12 4 Parthenon (make your own wooden model) $125 available) $14.95 5 Rosetta Stone 800 piece jigsaw puzzle $29.95 12 50 Objects 50 Stories $29.95 6 7 6 Aristotle’s Number Puzzle $25 13 The Classical Cookbook $21.95 7 Helmet pencils $5 14 Classical Love Poetry $19.95

32 ISSUE 06 NOVEMBER 2013 33 MACLEAY TOURING THE PAST MUSEUM TOURISM AND HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA MACLEAY BUILDING, GOSPER LANE 26 AUGUST 2013 – 14 FEBRUARY 2014 THE QUADRANGLE THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY OPEN TO THE PUBLIC From Port Arthur to the Dog on the Tuckerbox, this exhibition MONDAY TO FRIDAY 10AM–4.30PM explores the variety of pasts that tourists visited, the exhibits FIRST SATURDAY OF MONTH 12–4PM CLOSED ON PUBLIC HOLIDAYS that drew them in and the souvenirs they took away.

Replica Ned Kelly helmet. On loan from Old Melbourne Gaol. Image © Tim Harland